Christmas, n. [kris-muhs, krĭs-məs]
-This holiday is both ancient and modern, religious and secular. It first appears in our language during the time of Old English, when it was simply called the Cristes mæsse 'Christ's mass or festival,' a mass being the religious service performed by a priest in front of (later involving) the community members. By late Middle English and beginning in at least the 14th century, the name for this holy day was shortened to the single word Cristemas. When the name Cristes was altered to Christ during the 15th century, it was also changed in the name of the holiday, resulting in Christmas. As for the infamous Xmas, this was in no way meant to delete the name of Jesus from the holiday. The earliest known use is recorded as Xres mæsse from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which dates from 1100, long before Cristes mæsse as the proper name had even been joined into one word. Xres was derived from Xr-, one of the two early ways of shortening Cristes (the other being Xp-)from Greek Christos. In actual Greek, Christos is written as Χριστός, so the Xr- (or Xp-) is just the first letter of his name. We don't see any form of Xmas as one word until the mid-1500's.



Side note:
Merry Christmas to everyone here who celebrates it, and a belated Happy Hanukkah, Merry Yule, and early Happy Kwanzaa! I'm happy to report that I have the next week off, so I'll only be posting on occasion here. Everyone take care and enjoy the festive time of year!

mood: working tags: christmas, xmas

yesterday, n. [yes-ter-dey, yěs-tər-dā]
-Though the requester correctly noted that yesterday and yeast have similar pronunciations and spellings, they are not in fact related. Yesterday is first seen as a single word in a document from about 1250 CE, being spelled as yisterdai. It was formed from the Old English compound noun geostran dæg 'yesterday day' (c. 950), with geostran being first recorded on its own around 725. While geostran was originally sufficient on its own, over time it became absolutely paired with dæg. Interestingly, though many of the cognates of Old English geostran have equivalent definitions, several mean 'tomorrow' or both 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow': Middle Low German gistern 'yesterday,' Middle Dutch ghisteren 'yesterday,' Old Norse gær 'tomorrow, yesterday,' Gothic gistradagis 'tomorrow.' All of these stem from Proto-Germanic gestra 'the other day,' which could refer to either before or after the present day, leading to the dichotomous definitions in the daughter languages. The Germanic root is thought to have descended from prehistoric Indo-European ghes-, which also created Sanskrit hyah, Avestan zyo, Persian di, Greek khthes, Old Irish indhe, and Welsh doe, all meaning 'yesterday' or 'an indistinct past time.' Let's not forget Latin heri 'yesterday' and hesternus 'of yesterday,' the founder of French hier and several other words for 'yesterday' in the Romance languages.

mood: bored tags: yesterday

yeast, n. [yeest, yēst]
-Though we now consider yeast to be any fungi of the genus Saccharomyces (especially S. cerevisiae), which reproduces by budding and from ascospores and is capable of fermenting carbohydrates, Middle English yest, yeest specifically referred to the froth of fermenting beer. The Middle English term was developed from Late Old English gist ' yeast,' which first appeared around 1000 CE. Scholars are not sure of the Germanic ancestor of our English word, but they do believe it to be a Western Germanic word that also produced Middle High German gest 'foam, froth' and Old High German jesan 'to ferment.' Whatever the source is, it sprung from prehistoric Indo-European jes-, yes-.


Side note:
If anyone knows the definition of this PIE root, would you please let us know? I've been searching for about an hour now but just can't find it. I think this calls for a new reference book purchase. :)

mood: full tags: yeast

curmudgeon, n. [ker-muhj-uhn, kər-mŭj-ən]
-Such a lively word, rich with meaning and imagery! Unfortunately, scholars have absolutely no idea where curmudgeon comes from, though there are a few theories. As the definition is 'a cantankerous, ill-tempered, and difficult person,' some scholars think that the cur- in curmudgeon might refer to English cur 'a mongrel dog' because this has come to be used as derogatory slang for a person. An older theory claims that curmudgeon might be the poor English translation of French coeur mechant 'evil heart,' but this opinion has fallen out of favor.



The infamous duo of curmudgeons from The Muppet Show

mood: contemplative tags: curmudgeon

fine, adj. & n. [fahyn, fīn]
-Depending on its part of speech, fine can have seemingly very different definitions, though their histories meet up in one common ancestor. Starting with the adjective, fine 'of high quality, superior' was first recorded in English around 1250 CE as Middle English as fin 'free of blemish, refined, pure.' It was directly borrowed from Old French fin 'perfected, of highest quality,' which itself came from Latin finis 'the end, limit' in the sense of 'peak, acme, supreme state.' Scholars have also found traces of this Romantic root in Old High German fin and Middle Dutch fijn. The history of the noun form of fine, defined as 'money paid in penalty,' follows the exact same path through French and Latin but took a slightly different interpretation of the Latin base. Starting with the meaning of Latin finis as 'the end, the limit,' Old French adapted it to the noun form of fin 'the end, the conclusion.' Once again around 1250, the first known usage of Middle English fin 'ending, termination' was recorded. By 1399, it had developed from a general meaning of payment (to end a deal or interaction) to our modern sense of 'payment as punishment for an offense.'

mood: frustrated tags: fine

tickle your fancy
-This idiomatic expression is used when something pleases you or strongly engages your interest, though it can also be used as a euphemism for sexual pleasure or attraction, especially in women. If you break down the phrase, tickle is used to mean 'to excite or stir up in a pleasing manner' (think of the smiling, laughing reaction of a person being physically tickled), and fancy as a noun that means 'a notion or whim, a fantasy.' Dating at least from the late 1700's, tickle your fancy's original definition may have originally been closer to our modern euphemistic approach. One of the earliest known references comes from Abraham Tucker's 1774 In the Light of Nature Pursued, the author tells of animals "whose play had a quality of striking the joyous perception, or, as we vulgarly, say, tickling the fancy." After World War II, British English speakers began using it in a rhyming slang expression that associated a Nancy (a male homosexual) with tickling your fancy (arousing you sexually or performing sexual acts with you). An alternate version is found in strike your fancy.

mood: sore tags: stickle your fancy